Prisoners recently transferred en masse to Marion County’s new “high tech” Adult Detention Center (ADC) have already begun to collectively resist the unacceptable conditions inside the facility. County Judges and sheriffs have been forced to admit that the situation is a “powder keg” and that an uprising could break out at any moment (1). Inmates are agitated by non-functional tablets leaving them without access to commissary goods, broken video conference technology making visitation and court appearances impossible, as well as backed up toilets among many other issues.
Judge Amy Jones told Sherriff Forestal that she had been disturbed by what she saw and heard at her recent visit to the ADC in a closed-door zoom conference on January 27th.“Having heard what I heard directly from the sheriff and saw what I saw the other day when I was over there, I mean, it was a little unnerving quite frankly,” said Judge Jones. “They were on the brink of a riot (2).” Don’t be concerned though, Col. James Martin tells the Indy Star, “The jail’s not burning”, a vote of confidence if there ever was one (3). It may not be on fire ( and there’s serious doubt that the Marion County Sheriffs department would know what to do in such a scenario) but that does not mean things are not completely unacceptable as far as the inmates are concerned. The lack of functioning toilets, inability to order food and hygiene essentials, and the impossibility of confidently meeting with defense attorneys, are all human rights violation of the highest order. Let’s not forget that county jails are not state prisons. The majority of county jail populations are comprised of individuals awaiting trial, never having been sentenced for a single day in detention. When will they get their day in court? With how things are going at the “smartest jail in the country”(4) it could be a very long time indeed.
Despite Col. Martin’s reassurance, he and Sheriff Forestal “described a perceived risk of ambushes last month at the Adult Detention Center” during January 27th video conference. Allegedly at least two organized attacks on CO’s were suspected but neither actually came to pass. Nevertheless, Sheriff Forestal opted for the carrot and stick approach in attempting to calm the situation. After his offer of free pizza to inmates on the week of January 17th failed to compensate for the myriad of deplorable issues they face, the Sheriff decided to exercise a “show of force” by occupying a cell block with deputies (5). None of it has worked to relax tensions.
The crisis at the ADC is an inevitable result of decades of backwards, reactionary policy emanating from the Governor’s office, through the State House down to the courts, Department of Correction, police and sheriff’s departments. Indiana has seen its incarcerated population grow spectacularly since its sweeping 2015 “criminal justice reform” that resulted in chronic overcrowding in state prisons and county jails. Last year, the Indy Star released a series of articles following years of investigation into the epidemic of deaths in county detention centers. Marion County ADC continues that tradition of death, with an inmate taking his own life only a week after the facility opened (6). Counties have lethargically tried to remedy the overcrowding situation by building new jails all over the state, but even that has been a failure. The overcrowding problem persists with skyrocketing levels of incarceration for low level drug offenders, and now state lawmakers are planning on sending level six felons back to state prison to serve their sentences.(7) Since the 2015 changes, those sentenced to 2.5 or fewer years would serve their sentences at the county level, resulting in a ballooning jail population. The whole fiasco is one massive tangle of incompetence and negligent waste, engineered by politicians and police for whom the humanity of prisoners is the last on the list of priorities. It should be mentioned that the same Judge Jones, whose recent tour of the ADC left her disturbed, just this past December canceled Marion County’s collaboration with the Bail Project, a non-profit that posts bail for low-income detainees.(8). That means there are many people trapped in the jail right now for no other reason than lack of funds, and Marion County cut off one of the only resources which could actually remedy the situation. How many people crowded into ADC would be able to defend their cases from home if they were able to post bail? That would be something the public deserves to know.
Ultimately, the Indiana Department of Correction has the authority and the duty to shutter county jails which fail to meet the basic standards of overcrowding and staffing. An authority it has never once exercised, despite a sizable majority of county jails violating these standards. That’s because, as stated, until recently, the people who suffered the most from these issues were the inmates themselves. That’s not a problem as far as the DOC is concerned. Now however, corrections officers are feeling the heat. With the the ratio of prisoner to CO getting bigger all the time, CO’s may get that lucrative overtime pay, but their favorite “perks” like mouthing off to and dehumanizing prisoners may cost them more than they signed up for with fewer of their comrades-in-arms around to back them up. The Marion County ADC currently has about half of the staff it purportedly requires, 62 of 116.(9). The prisoncrats should really be concerned when a $5,000 signing bonus (offered at ADC) and “no experience necessary” fails to attract enough applicants to fill the positions. One can only hope that people are becoming less enthused by the prospect of employment in the service of modern day slavery.
All things considered Marion County’s “smart” prison could witness an inmate uprising in the near future. In all likelihood county and state officials from the sheriff on up will blame the “violent” criminals that they warehouse for going too far. But uprisings don’t come out of nowhere. The state has been sewing the seeds for this for many years. Sending them to state prisons will not solve the issues either. Those facilities are arguably in just as bad if not worse condition. The number of deaths in the DOC is difficult to know because the department does not share those records. It is known however, that at least two inmates at Pendleton Correctional Facility died and several more were infected from a December outbreak of Legionairre’s Disease caused by contaminated water. It is known that CO’s routinely assualt prisoners, beating them and spraying them with chemical weapons. The situation at the Secure Housing Unit at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility is not unlike that at Marion County ADC. Commissary is completely restricted, video visitation is available only on weekends if at all, and a recent Covid outbreak caused by negligent CO’s infected numerous inmates. It’s no wonder the DOC does not step in to correct the county jails when its own house is so out of order.
The inmates at ADC are faced with an environment completely out of their control. They lack the most basic of human necessities, and have no idea what or how things will change. They’ve been neglected, tortured, and humiliated. So they may break windows, they may disable technical systems, flood cells or take other actions. All perfectly reasonable given their conditions. No matter what happens, the blame lays squarely at the feet of Marion County, the DOC, and the State of Indiana.
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